R9 390x VRAM Cooling?

[iamdarkyoshi]

So as many of you may know, I am passively cooling my PC on the cheap. How well do the videoram chips need to be cooled? I am currently thinking I will need to make a copper plate and some heatpipes to the main heatsink to sink the heat from them. I know for a fact I will need to break out the heatpipes for the VRMs. But what about the videoram?

[don_svetlio]

VRAM doesn't need cooling AFAIK. Unless you start overvolting it

[Kobathor]

If you have good airflow to it, just stick some GPU memory heat sinks on it. They don't need tons of cooling at all. 

[iamdarkyoshi]

Just now, Kobathor said:

If you have good airflow to it, just stick some GPU memory heat sinks on it. They don't need tons of cooling at all. 

Nothing more than passively cooling induced airflow...

[Stefan1024]

3 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

So as many of you may know, I am passively cooling my PC on the cheap. How well do the videoram chips need to be cooled? I am currently thinking I will need to make a copper plate and some heatpipes to the main heatsink to sink the heat from them. I know for a fact I will need to break out the heatpipes for the VRMs. But what about the videoram?

If you make the block for the core large enougth you can also cool the VRAM with it like I did:

 

The VRM sould be connected to the main heat sink. I had to add some quite impressive coolers to even get the VRMs on the GTX970 under controll.

[iamdarkyoshi]

1 minute ago, Stefan1024 said:

If you make the block for the core large enougth you can also cool the VRAM with it like I did:

 

The VRM sould be connected to the main heat sink. I had to add some quite impressive coolers to even get the VRMs on the GTX970 under controll.

Ya the VRM will have its own heatpipes to the main heatsink. but...

 

So many VRAM chips... Thinking about soldering a big copper plate on the bottom of the cooler I made

[Kobathor]

6 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Nothing more than passively cooling induced airflow...

Why? 

 

Never mind, the VRAM doesn't really need active cooling, like I already said. Just having the heat sinks will dissipate the little heat it generates well enough. 

[iamdarkyoshi]

3 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

Why? 

 

Never mind, the VRAM doesn't really need active cooling, like I already said. Just having the heat sinks will dissipate the little heat it generates well enough. 

Why? Because why not? Moving parts are boring. 

[Stefan1024]

A big copper plate is good for the VRAM but adds resistance for the coolng if the core.

i have a pretty good graph of the power usage of the individual componets so you can estimate the cooling required. But I'm on the phone now so you have to wait until tomorrow.

 

[iamdarkyoshi]

28 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

A big copper plate is good for the VRAM but adds resistance for the coolng if the core.

i have a pretty good graph of the power usage of the individual componets so you can estimate the cooling required. But I'm on the phone now so you have to wait until tomorrow.

 

I have some copper sheets I might solder onto the sides of the main block to take the videoram heat away. This way I do not have any extra stuff between the gpu die and heatsink.

[afyeung]

4 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

So as many of you may know, I am passively cooling my PC on the cheap. How well do the videoram chips need to be cooled? I am currently thinking I will need to make a copper plate and some heatpipes to the main heatsink to sink the heat from them. I know for a fact I will need to break out the heatpipes for the VRMs. But what about the videoram?

Honestly just a waste of your time. If you spend a lot of work trying to passively cool the 390x and it ending up doesn't work, at least you didn't waste time on the VRAM chips.

[Sauron]

a small passive heatsink should do for the vram

[iamdarkyoshi]

4 minutes ago, afyeung said:

Honestly just a waste of your time. If you spend a lot of work trying to passively cool the 390x and it ending up doesn't work, at least you didn't waste time on the VRAM chips.

I have to cool the VRMs anyway, so I will do the VRAM while I am at it. Come hell or high water I AM passively cooling the card

[afyeung]

2 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

I have to cool the VRMs anyway, so I will do the VRAM while I am at it. Come hell or high water I AM passively cooling the card

Good luck. It'll be very hard to passively cool a 250-300w+ TDP card. I'm having a hard time myself handling a 390x and a 290 at the same time even with AIO clc's. Might make an interesting undervolting project. It looks like you are trying to sell the 390x though from your sig? 

[iamdarkyoshi]

1 minute ago, afyeung said:

Good luck. It'll be very hard to passively cool a 250-300w+ TDP card. I'm having a hard time myself handling a 390x and a 290 at the same time even with AIO clc's. Might make an interesting undervolting project. It looks like you are trying to sell the 390x though from your sig? 

I am trying to sell it and get a nano, but if that does not work, I will just use the 390x and hopefully find a good home for the custom GPU block and backplate

[afyeung]

1 minute ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

I am trying to sell it and get a nano, but if that does not work, I will just use the 390x and hopefully find a good home for the custom GPU block and backplate

Nice! I'd say your main worry though is probably the VRM's. those can get extremely hot. Even with VRM sinks with a 92mm fan on my 390x they still reach 91c at stock volts. But I also have a kraken x41 drawing air from the front so that might be part of the issue. 

[Stefan1024]

7 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

I have to cool the VRMs anyway, so I will do the VRAM while I am at it. Come hell or high water I AM passively cooling the card

Here is the chart. It's from the Xeon Phi, but your card is very similar:

 

 

Also this super smal heat sinks for the VRAM are not going to cool 1.3 watt passive.